While I enjoyed the thread pointing out the the escapist is full of hateful people, apparently has misread the intent of this thread.

In this instance, we do not care much about religion. We don't hate it, we just wish they would turn the preaching down several notches.

When I first saw Smite, I was intrigued by the concept. I probably won't play it, but I see it as a new way of getting people interested in religion. Find a god you like, read up on him/her. Boom, religion.

The 'arguement' reminds me of the church level on Resistance: Fall of Man. Or any other religious 'arguement' involving gaming. I think the captcha caught my mood perfectly.

Play it again, sam.

At the end of the day, this is just background noise. And I'd rather listen to this that Beiber.

I'm really in the middle on this one. On one hand, developers shouldn't just cave to special interest groups, and they have the right to make whatever game they want. On the other hand, it is disrespectful to portray such important figures in this way, and it almost feels like it was a calculated decision. I mean, no one sees a game where you play as Jesus. I'm just gonna stay out of this one.

Including Hindu gods into Smites fiction, even though it may be inconsistent w/Hindu teachings, is not, by itself, disrespect. If that were the case, protestants would be disrespecting catholics because they incorrectly portray purgatory, transubstantiation, what it takes to be saved, etc... in the eyes of catholics at least.

This is a bad comparison. The latter sentence refers to differences in beliefs and practices between religious groups. Respect in this case means respecting differences in beliefs. The issue here is that the Hindu leadership is the only group that has jurisdiction over their central religious figures and practices. Not respecting rules on how a sacred figure should be portrayed is disrespectful to them.

A good analogy: no matter how you visually portray Mohammed, it's being disrespectful.

Revnak:I... I feel so odd about this. On one hand, people of different religious beliefs are respecting one another. On another hand, they're trying to force a piece of media to not be made, which I am definitely against. I just don't know whether I should be upset or pleased.

I'm not sure they're "trying to force a piece of media so much". They're just asking the developer to be more respectful of their beliefs because they may not necessarily understand them. This isn't even a case of the normal loud-mouth militant religious nut tries to get congress to censor everything ever, this is case of several religous people asking politely for some reservation. I mean, the only one of the three who actually called for any kind of change was the one rabbi and all he said was "to avoid trivializing the deeply held beliefs of Hindus by changing the product accordingly." I agree that sometimes religious folk go over the top, but in this case I think they have a point. Having a deep narrative explaing or exploring the mythos of a particular culture is one thing, having an MMO where dieties senselessly beat the hell out of each other in pursuit of better trowsers is another.

You are free to worship as you see fit, but that does not mean that everyone on the planet has to respect your deity. And let's get one thing straight: If it exists, it's fair game to be used in any medium, regardless of whether or not you personally find it offensive. Because let me tell you something: Not everyone believes the same things you do, and that's okay. If a product out there offends you, there is a very simple answer: DON'T CONSUME IT.

A message to everyone everywhere:

Just avoid being an asshole.

Here's the jist of what I get from many of these responses: "Wow, I can't believe religious people have the sheer gall to say that some things offend them. What a bunch of stuck up cunts."

Fuck respecting the dieties, want to explain to me why everyone on the planet can't just respect each other? If you're loudly doing a racist impersonation of a Chinese man in the street and someone who might just be Chinense politely asks you to stop, I feel like most people's response won't be to tell them "lighten up, I have a right to do whatever the fuck I want and if you have a problem then you can just leave" and then proceed to do it even louder.

Here's a fun idea, next time a black person gets offended at someone saying nigger, tell the black person not to be such an oversensitive asshole. See what happens when you yell to them that they can be as offended as they want and believe whatever they want is offensive, but no matter what you're still gonna say it.

Thank you!I was getting very tired of all the posts being along the lines of " Go QQ in a corner silly religious people!".And there was me, thinking this board had a wide range of opinions.You go on trucking, you wonderful person you!

They're well within their rights to ask this of the games developers, and I don't fully agree with that they're trying to do, but I can defiantly understand it.This has also proved that some atheists can be just as annoying as devout followers of religion.

Revnak:I... I feel so odd about this. On one hand, people of different religious beliefs are respecting one another. On another hand, they're trying to *force* a piece of media to not be made, which I am definitely against. I just don't know whether I should be upset or pleased.

They're not trying to force anything, they're just trying to convince the game makers to have a little respect for their beliefs. They're not being nasty, or rude, they're not being violent, or petitioning the government to make a law. They're just saying "Hey do you think that you could show a little respect, that's one of our gods." I think that they're being reasonable in the way they're handling this. All they want is respect and understanding. What's wrong with that?

What's wrong is that they're objecting to what is essentially just another santa or bigfoot, simply because of their emotional attachment to it. Creating a taboo around religious figures can not bring anything but harm to the already neutered public discourse around it.

Plus, if these people actually care about the gods instead of protecting their own wishful thinking, they should be getting up in arms over any deity's depiction in media, because guess what - every deity has just as much evidence supporting it as the other. I'm sure Zeus wouldn't be happy with the all the trivialization of him going on in the media, why aren't they jumping in his defense?

No where in the article did I see them saying do not make the game. All I see is I don't like how are trivialising some icons. Rereads through the article to see it is only a verysmallfew preachers from other religions. Looks at thread on escapist. Facepalms.

While personally, this doesn't seem too bad and I don't fully agree with the complaints this is thread is way out of whack with what was said. You would swear the Westboro Baptist Church had protested outside of one of the devs mum's funerals with signs saying she is going to hell because her son/daughter helped make this game.

Also where are people getting the idea that this is a fighting game it isn't. It is a Dota game and looking at the gameplay I'd rather play LoL while waiting for Dota than buy this game.

On the other end of the spectrum we have the Japanese/Shinto worshipers who are so proud of their culture that all their entertainment media especially video games and even Pokemon are chock full of references and you can actually catch them like monsters.

Catholics:So, I know you're all going to be burning in the fires of hell, but we have a threat to our monopoly of hate and I think we can all call an EARTHLY truce do deal with this matter.

Hindus/Buddhists: Whatever do you mean, silly man with a slain dude on a stick?

Catholics:Video games, more and more, and trying to exercise their 'free speech' and we can't have that.We lost the war against books, music, and movies but we MUST NOT allow this to happen in our war against video games.

Hindus/Buddhists:Mmmm...yes...mmm.Very well, let us ignore the logic centers of our brains and protest a silly little video game even though all it's REALLY going to do is give the damn thing free press and maybe make it sell more copies.

Meh. I don't really know how to feel about this. On the one hand I think it's terrible precious of the Hindus to get offended at something like this. On the other hand the fact is that they are getting offended, and at the end of the day calling the character Kali doesn't really add anything to the game other than the small gimmick of playing as a Hindu god. Therefore I think both sides are being equally petty. The Hindus for complaining about something so trivial and the game devs for refusing to change something which is so trivial. All they need to do is change the name and say that the character is inspired by Kali, without actually being Kali, and the problem is solved. It's not as if the devs are even trying to make any sort of comment or criticism so I don't see this as a suppression of free speech.

Including Hindu gods into Smites fiction, even though it may be inconsistent w/Hindu teachings, is not, by itself, disrespect. If that were the case, protestants would be disrespecting catholics because they incorrectly portray purgatory, transubstantiation, what it takes to be saved, etc... in the eyes of catholics at least.

This is a bad comparison. The latter sentence refers to differences in beliefs and practices between religious groups. Respect in this case means respecting differences in beliefs. The issue here is that the Hindu leadership is the only group that has jurisdiction over their central religious figures and practices. Not respecting rules on how a sacred figure should be portrayed is disrespectful to them.

A good analogy: no matter how you visually portray Mohammed, it's being disrespectful.

I see your point, but I would disagree that they have jurisdiction over their central figures. Look at my other examples. The hbo animated series SPAWN. The 'Prophecy' series of movies. The exorcist. Dogma. The Davinci Code. Or any other movie involving character(s) from various accepted world religions. There are many. These aren't depictions anyone seriously views as true events, they are recognized by all as fictional stories involving religious figures and contradict all sorts of religious teachings about these figures. Imagine a world w/out these movies. Imagine a world where no one would fictionalize a religious figure for fear of being disrespectful.

I think what sticks in their craw more about this situation is that kali isn't just some part of a story in the background of the game, rather, you can play *as* kali.

Besides - Religion is the exploration of the *real* world. You get jurisdiction over a character when you write a book via copyright/trademark because its fictional. But no one should have 'jurisdiction' over depictions of a religious figure, because real or not, they are *purported* to be real. And one way for people to decide for themselves if they believe or not is to explore the idea of these characters, both through science (archeology, physics, astronomy), social science (history), and even fiction (satire, or perhaps just to see - does this character even make sense, even seem possible).

Look at science. We don't say that adherents of mutually exclusive scientific theories have to respect each other by refraining from poo-pooing each other's ideas. Just the opposite. Only by encouraging them to go after each other can we slowly whittle out the bad ideas and get closer to the truth. And just as science is the exploration of the *real* world, so, supposedly, is religion. We need more dialog about religion and all its ideas w/out restraint, for the same reason. We need skeptical cynical examination of religious ideas and figures. Not this walk-on-eggshells attitude.

but again, we're leaving the real issue in the dust and not addressing it here - is what they did disrepectful? I don't see how it could be seen as such. It was not reverent, but they aren't believers, so that's to be expected. But depicting kali in a work of fiction, to me, is not the same as being actively disrepectful towards people who might believe in kali. At least not by itself. (obviously if your intent is to be disrespectful, then that same work of fiction could easily be made to be so).Believers cannot expect non-believers to show reverence toward things they do not believe in. The best way to achieve that would be to convince them to be believers themselves.

Never bring religion to anything you do and both sides will be happy. Imagine if THEY tried to do this to gamers and made Super Mario or Master Chief and any character you care about follower of some religion, would YOU be happy? no? so STFU. Of course this wouldnt be escapist otherwise.

SmegInThePants:but again, we're leaving the real issue in the dust and not addressing it here - is what they did disrepectful? I don't see how it could be seen as such. It was not reverent, but they aren't believers, so that's to be expected. But depicting kali in a work of fiction, to me, is not the same as being actively disrepectful towards people who might believe in kali. At least not by itself. (obviously if your intent is to be disrespectful, then that same work of fiction could easily be made to be so).Believers cannot expect non-believers to show reverence toward things they do not believe in. The best way to achieve that would be to convince them to be believers themselves.

No, no I'm pretty sure you could say this is being disrespectful. Like not respecting the divinity of whatever deity is disrespectful or whatever.

But with that said, respect is something that's earned, and not there by default. I'm under just as much obligation to respect religious beliefs as the belief that Lord of the Rings is a historic book, that Spiderman is real, that the stars tell our future, that Elvis is still alive or that the cosmic bunnyrabbit of Neptune wants us to do something - none. Until someone brings proof to their baseless (and often immensely contradictory, with itself or the facts) assertions, fiction is what they are.

And not only that, but it's fiction that people take as fact, which is poison to the mind. Ridiculous ideas deserve ridicule and all that.

starwarsgeek:I get the idea behind this outcry: people of the Hindu faith don't want to see their religion treated as a toy. Gaming has yet to treat the topic of religion well. I don't think they're reacting the right way though. Encourage people to ignore the game, and hold it up as an example on not treating the topic properly. After all, I don't remember a huge deal being made about Final Fantasy 10.

Final Fantasy tends to just toss "impressive" names onto unrelated creatures. It probably never even popped onto their radar. Smite, on the other hand, is directly marketing "Play as this god/goddess and whup some divine ass!" It's a little more... direct.

It's the difference between someone saying they "banged ur mom" and that person creating a lifelike inflatable doll of your mother, banging it, and then mailing you the explicit video, complete with recorded sounds of your mother's orgasm. One, most people would brush off, the other, people might care about.

Not saying I disagree with Smite, I've had friends say the test runs were a lot of fun, but there is a matter of perspective to consider for those who don't share our worldview.

I don't think you've played Final Fantasy X. It's an entire game warning about the dangers of mindlessly following religious dogma. The entire plot is centered around the world nearly being destroyed because people refused to question their religious leaders and deities.

Part 2, and the reason so many in this thread are mad: they are attempting to censor a company because they find it offensive to their god. While it's a nice sentiment of their part, needless censorship of any kind is wrong.

Big problem with your analogy. The company making the game, to my knowledge, is not doing it to be offensive or hurt anyone. They are simply taking fictional characters and making a video game out of them.

Telling them to stop because it hurts your feelings is censorship. They are not infringing upon your right to worship, or any of your religious practices. Therefore, an attempt to stop them is censorship, pure and simple.

It's hard to go against such friendly looking people who look like they are going to shoot rainbows, but why should religion be free of video gaming persona's? As a white person, am I offended by the cartoonish heavy in team fortress as he is a poor representation of us? if I had a pony, would I be offended by mlp's cartoony ones? should we ban cartoons forever even the harmless ones because someone might not want to be a cartoon?

I don't see why religion should get a free slate. I would be very dissapointed if they buckled.

Ok. Can they perhaps explain how a fictional depiction of a deity can be disrespectful and trivializing to its followers, questions about the real or fictional nature of the deity itself notwithstanding? That's the part that I can't wrap my head around. Thanks.

felbot:oh now i definitely hope they include the abrahamic god and include allah incase the muslims wanna protest too.

Very unlikely that they do, the cristian faith would go up in arms protesting and sueing and the muslims (the very dangerous minority) would do much more than that. However I think the game developers expected that to happen, if not count on it for free publicity, it is easy to mess with hindu, tao and buddist figures, since they are more or less the peacefull ones of this world (see Vishnu doing coke in South Park).

I have been seeing a lot of comments along the lines of, "It's good to see people from different religions rallying together for a common cause". I for one think it's about time people started working together.

My only problem I have with this, is that they aren't doing it for the sake of the world and humanity, but to get a video game's depiction of their god/gods changed. Why don't they make a combined effort and join together in solving some of the biggest problems in our world, like famine, poverty and disease? Sure it's not as easy as writing it down here and then being done, but you have to start somewhere and anything that you do makes a difference.

One the one hand I see their point, all religion should be respected and its good to see people of various faiths joining together

On the other hand its a video game and censorship is an awful thing, anyone who saying they have no reason to be upset (AKA most of the "Lol-so-atheist" members of this site) is being silly but maybe they should focus this joining of religion on something a tad more prominent, like hate, that needs to be stopped.

THATS NOT ENOUGH!QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ

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Well glad to see their capable of protesting more then same-sex-marriage.

rcs619:[quote="felbot" post="7.381866.15052515"]Seriously though, if Smite offends these guys, their heads are going to explode whenever they find out about the Shin Megami Tensei series. lol

LOL :D

Oh I had a good laugh when I read that.

But seriously people stop being butthurt over a game. First of all it's not slandering your religion it's just using figures as heroes. Second of all your religion is not protected from slander.

I can say anything I want about it whenever I want to. So please, go cry in the corner silently.

Sigh... So it's okay if gamers get offended when Samus takes a character turn that they don't appreciate, but a religion getting offended that their gods, that they hold as absolute truth, are getting put into a fighting game where they can lose to another religions god is just them being bitchy and not knowing that they've already lost?

Personally I can see their point and sort of agree with them, I certainly wouldn't want to see my mother or father or some other person I hold near and dear getting their face beaten in by someone as a game. Though Hindus and Buddhists getting together for something isn't at all surprising for anyone that has studied Indian history for more then five minutes.